Bertrand Court Read Online Free Page A

father’s Yiddish term for a drunk. She removed the cork and giggled.
    â€œOh my God, what have you done with my sister?” Hannah was the designated driver, always. Amy and their brother, Eric, called her the “perfect child.”
    â€œBeats me. I’m not even annoyed that you missed the kids.” Hannah took a few wobbly steps toward Amy. She normally moved with the grace of an acrobat.
    â€œCareful there, party girl.”
    Hannah, strong for such a sylphlike woman, embraced Amy so hard that she almost gasped.
    â€œHappy birthday.” Amy squeezed her back.
    Hannah slid out of Amy’s arms and picked up a plate loaded with frosting. “Here, I saved this for you.”
    Becca entered the kitchen with a handful of dirty forks. She tossed them into the sink and watched Amy scoop up a glob of icing with her finger and lick it.
    â€œAmy, hi, and that’s gross,” Becca said.
    â€œNot gross. Major deliciousness.” Amy’s siblings habitually heaped their frosting on her plate while their mother looked on disapprovingly. Amy’s excesses made her parents uncomfortable. To Amy’s surprise, though, tonight the frosting tasted too buttery and left an oily residue on her tongue.
    â€œWash your hands, and I’ll greet you properly.” Becca pointed to the sink.
    Amy rinsed her finger and then Becca hugged her.
    â€œWhy do you two smell like the inside of a bonfire?” Amy fanned her face.
    â€œWe’ve come here tonight to covet Becca’s new fire pit,” Hannah said. “And play some game.”
    They knew that Becca’s real mission for the party was neither to show off the fire pit nor play a parlor game nor even celebrate Hannah’s birthday, but to cheer up Hannah. She had been flying back to Milwaukee most weekends to help her mother sort and dispose of the remains of her dad’s life. A few days after the funeral, Amy feebly volunteered to take a shift but never followed up on the offer.
    â€œCome on, let’s go outside.” Hannah grabbed the bottle of wine and walked toward the back door.
    â€œWe’re right behind you,” Becca said, and then she turned to Amy and mouthed, “I’m worried about her.”
    â€œI know.” Amy mouthed back, not sure of what else to say or how to comfort her sister either. Hannah was much better at this kind of thing. She’d offered the perfect words to every mourner who attended their father’s shiva, but it was Amy who’d picked out the casket and propped up their mother while it was being lowered into the ground.
    Becca scrutinized Amy. “You, on the other hand, are glowing.”
    â€œI don’t know about that, Bec, but thanks.” Amy wrapped a long black curl around her finger. This morning her new boyfriend, Leon, had washed her hair with lemon-scented shampoo. He was an architect fifteen years hersenior, and like Amy, who was a graphic designer, he thought in shapes and pictures. Leon was still a secret. If Hannah knew about him, she would theorize that Amy was dating an older man to replace her father. Amy had met Leon on the flight to Milwaukee for the funeral. Unlike her father, Leon worshipped her, and she found herself welcoming this new kind of love, which seemed to be changing her a little bit each day.
    â€œCome covet my fire pit.” Becca led Amy through the mudroom, cluttered with her sons’ cleats and backpacks.
    It was an unusually cool night for June, too cold for the lightning bugs. Amy hadn’t thought to bring a sweater and shivered in her halter top and shorts. The sky was clear, but the air rippled with smoke. Becca walked past her prized hydrangeas toward ribbons of orange flames contained in a knee-high circle of cement and exquisite stone.
    â€œTa-da!” she said, thrusting her arms up like Mary Lou Retton sticking a vault. “What do you think?”
    The fire pit sat in the center of a carpet of pebbles.